


this is how it feels to take a fall

by nikkiRA



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Friends With Benefits, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, i will expand on that one day, there is a minor hint of a praise kink here, today is not that day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 05:15:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21350833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikkiRA/pseuds/nikkiRA
Summary: “Oh, for Saints sakes — people don’t just start having sex with their best friends for no reason, Felix."
Relationships: Sylvain Jose Gautier/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 22
Kudos: 571





	this is how it feels to take a fall

**Author's Note:**

> alternatively titled "trying to avoid icarus comparisons because icarus doesn't exist in fodlan" so title is from icarus by bastille 
> 
> this takes place while dimitri is still feral so i left him out but im sorry and i love him,,,,

Sylvain never wastes any time, which is almost funny. Felix has seen him spend hours being ludicrously charming in the hope that whatever woman he was heaping his praise on might give him the time of day; his patience was remarkable. 

But not for this. Felix never even gets the door closed before Sylvain is on him, long body pushing Felix against the wooden door, absolutely no concern for noise level. Anyone could hear. Fuck, Dimitri could hear, and wouldn’t that be fucking great. 

Sylvain always kisses his neck first, never his mouth. He attaches his lips to where Felix’s neck meets his jaw, and then he says, without fail, “I missed you.” It doesn’t matter how long it’s been. One time Felix had just gone to the bathroom -- he was back in less than ten minutes. It’s completely fucking ridiculous, and Felix tells him that, each time. Sylvain never responds, just focuses on getting Felix naked. It is always rushed and methodical; for a man that pours charm and charisma into everything he does, he gets Felix naked with intense focus. Then he pushes him down on the bed and starts working on taking Felix apart. 

There is no other way to put it. It isn’t foreplay, it’s sport. Sylvain delights in unraveling Felix, gets a sick level of delight from touching and kissing and sucking and biting until Felix is left a quivering mess. The only way to get him to stop is to say  _ please.  _ Felix always tries to fight it, but he always loses. It should be humiliating, but then Sylvain grins and kisses him, and he is so unguardedly  _ happy.  _ Felix would do any number of things to make Sylvain happy. Even he isn’t sure just how far he’d go. 

Sylvain never shuts the fuck up, either, which shouldn’t and doesn’t surprise him. No matter how many times Felix tells him to be quiet, that fucking  _ Dimitri  _ is next door, for the Goddess’ sake -- Sylvain will put a lid on it for a grand total of a minute and a half before he starts blabbing again. The worst thing about it is that Felix  _ loves  _ it. He loves all the nonsense that Sylvain babbles in his ear, all the noises he makes, the way he presses his forehead against Felix’s and says  _ you’re perfect, Felix, fuck, fuck, you’re so fucking good, Saints Felix fuck fuck --  _ a neverending stream in his ear, and Goddess, it wrecks Felix every time, every word breathed into his ear, every kiss pressed to his temple or his jaw or his lips. He lets Sylvain talk, lets the praise wash over him, let’s himself believe for a few minutes that Sylvain really means it. That this isn’t just… whatever it is. A convenient way to get off, a partner that won’t throw a glass of water in Sylvain’s face when they see him flirting with someone else, a no-nonsense fuck with someone who won’t expect anything from him in the morning. 

Sometimes he thinks this hurts him more than it helps him, but he can’t walk away now. He’s never been able to walk away from Sylvain. 

Felix never talks. Never opens his mouth. Sometimes Sylvain will ask him to, will kiss him deeply on the mouth and say  _ I want to hear you.  _ Felix kisses him back but doesn’t talk. He can’t. He keeps his mouth shut the entire time because if he doesn’t talk, he can’t ruin it. 

_ I love you.  _ If he opens his mouth he’ll be powerless to stop it, to stop the confession that will doom him.  _ I love you.  _ It sits in his chest, next to his heart, a fire that is burning him from the inside out. It’s patient; it waits for an opening, waits for Felix to open his mouth so it can slip out.  _ I love you, I love you.  _ It’s a second heartbeat, beating in time with Sylvain’s smiles, his kisses, his thrusts. Ready to slip out and take the only good thing Felix has left, destroy this fragile thing he has managed to grasp with slippery fingers, Sylvain naked and sweaty and glorious above him, Felix’s very own personal sun. Sometimes he thinks he might burn up. 

That’s how he’s feeling now; the feeling doesn’t dull with orgasm, especially not when Sylvain collapses beside him and wraps Felix up in his arms and shoves his face between Felix’s shoulder blades. They have the same conversation every time, but Sylvain can’t stop asking and Felix can’t stop saying no. 

“Stay tonight,” Sylvain says, lips brushing Felix’s skin as he speaks. Felix closes his eyes and lets himself have this for a moment. Then he pushes Sylvain’s arm off of him. 

“I can’t,” he says, moving to get up. Sylvain’s arm wraps around his waist again and pulls him back. 

“Yes you can,” he says. “You just choose not to.”

“Sylvain,” he says, annoyed, but he lets himself be pulled back down. No matter how many hours he spends training, he still isn’t strong enough. Sylvain pulls him down and rolls him over so they’re facing each other, which is bad, because it’s hard enough to resist Sylvain when he isn’t looking at him. He grins and kisses Felix, hand snaking around to rest on the small of Felix’s back, pulling him even closer. They are pressed together at every point. Felix rolls his eyes. 

“You can’t possibly want to have sex again,” he says. Sylvain laughs, a quiet thing that exists only between the two of them. 

“No, I want you to stay. Tell me why you never will.”

“There’s no reason to. I have my own bed. And you kick in your sleep.”

“I do not!”

“Yes you do. We used to sleep together all the time when we were kids.”

Sylvain considers this. “You never told me.”

“It wasn’t that big a deal,” Felix says. What he means is that he was afraid if he said anything, Sylvain would stop crawling into bed with him. He hadn’t known what his feelings meant back then; all he knew was that being around Sylvain made him happy, and he didn’t want that to end. He’d been a fool even as a child. 

“So we’ll put up a wall of pillows,” Sylvain says with a grin. “Or you can just kick me back.”

“Or I can just sleep in my own room, in my own bed.”

Sylvain kisses the side of his mouth; he’s still smiling. It’s incredibly infuriating. It’s incredibly endearing. 

“But then you don’t get to wake up next to me,” Sylvain says. Felix tries to be annoyed. Felix tries to remember why he can’t stay.

_ If I stay I’ll never leave. _

“I’ve woken up beside you before,” he says, fighting to keep his voice annoyed. “You hog the blankets and you have bad breath.”

Sylvain remains unswayed. “I just think --”

“Enough,” he snaps. “I’m not one of your fucking girls, Sylvain. Stop treating me like one, and stop making this more than it is.”

Sylvain recoils, and Felix immediately hates himself. Hurt crosses Sylvain’s face before he manages a smile. It’s one of his fake smiles, too big, too bright. It doesn’t reach his eyes. Felix has seen that smile hundreds of times, directed at women Sylvain pretended to love, plastered on around his father when he talked about Crests -- but never at Felix. Sylvain has never had to fake anything around Felix. 

Until now. 

“I don’t mean --” he starts, trying to backtrack, to fix it, to get that fucking smile off of Sylvain’s face, but Sylvain shakes his head and pulls away from Felix. 

“No, you’re right,” he says, and Felix wants to tell him no, but he can’t, he can only look at that smile that doesn't reach Sylvain’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t push.” He leans forward and kisses Felix once, on the side of his mouth. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

And what can he do except leave? Sylvain normally gets up with him and kisses him against the door, a last ditch effort to convince him to stay, but this time he just rolls over, and Felix shuts the door behind him, feeling very much like he just ruined the best thing he’s ever had. 

* * *

It started in the training grounds. 

Felix had been training until late in the night; it wasn’t uncommon for him to lose track of time, and Sylvain or Ingrid had often come looking for him to drag him to bed. Sylvain had come this time, but to Felix’s surprise, it wasn’t to tell him to go to sleep. 

“Wanna spar with me?” He asked, and of course Felix said yes. 

Sparring with Sylvain was always a challenge. Felix trained longer and harder than Sylvain did, but Sylvain had almost 5 inches on him (a fact that had haunted Felix since Sylvain had sprouted up and he hadn’t), and he was much bulkier. So even if his technique was sloppier, and even if he was used to fighting atop a horse, sparring with him always provided a challenge. 

It was a mental challenge, as well. Sylvain, panting and sweaty, a grin on his face as he swiped his hair out of his eyes, was a sight that was hard to look away from. His lance kept them from being too close most of the time, a blessing that Felix was grateful for every time. 

This time, though, Sylvain didn’t grab a lance. He stood in front of Felix empty handed and said, “I need to work on my hand to hand combat.”

Felix raised an eyebrow. “Hard to punch someone on a horse, Sylvain.”

“What if we’re fighting on terrain that’s not conducive to horses? It’s happened before. Come on, it’s good to broaden your horizons, and you’re great at brawling.”

“All that means is that I’m going to win.”

Sylvain grinned. “Don’t get cocky,” he said, as Felix put his sword away. He had a feeling this was a bad idea, but there wasn’t really anything he could do about it. If he said no Sylvain would keep trying to goad him into it, and if he doubled down and refused Sylvain might realize something was up. 

Felix wasn’t cocky at all, actually. He hadn’t been focusing much on brawling ever since Byleth had told him to focus on his magic, and fighting hand to hand meant Sylvain’s height and strength would be of even more use to him. 

The end result was close. Sylvain was stronger but sloppy; he wasn’t used to fighting so close. He ended up overcompensating by focusing mostly on offense, leaving himself open to counterattacks that he rarely saw coming. The other side of that, though, was that when he  _ did  _ get a hit in, it sent Felix reeling. Sylvain put all his weight behind his punches; Felix was going to be bruised like hell the next day. 

Even when Felix’s body was screaming out for a break -- he had been training pretty vigorously before Sylvain had showed up -- he kept up, unwilling to be the one to break. He compensated for this by fighting a little dirtier, taking cheap shots, pushing in closer, taking advantage of Sylvain’s long limbs. 

Sylvain didn’t stop pushing, fighting back as good as he got. Felix couldn’t keep up, not after hours of training. Felix pushed with whatever was left of his energy to get a hit in, and Sylvain staggered, grabbed Felix by the front of his shirt, and then pulled him down with him when he fell. 

Felix landed on top of him. Sylvain was out of breath, and his hair was a mess, hanging in his eyes. He had wrapped his arms around Felix as they fell and was holding him tight. He was grinning. 

He was  _ hard.  _

Felix was, too, although that wasn’t necessarily surprising. Him and Sylvain, alone, close together, fighting? All factors that turned Felix on immensely. But Sylvain adjusted beneath him, pushing one of his legs in between Felix’s. When he felt Felix’s erection pressed against him, he raised an eyebrow in silent challenge. 

Felix leaned down and kissed him. Sylvain laughed against his mouth and then flipped them over, working a hand between them to tug at the strings of Felix’s pants.

They made out on the ground, Sylvain’s lips pressed to his and one of his hands wrapped around both of them. Felix’s breath was heaving as Sylvain jerked them both off, and Felix wrapped his legs around Sylvain’s waist, kissing him again. They ground against each other, kissing and touching and sweating, until Felix came, spilling over Sylvain’s hand and all over their pants. Sylvain followed right after, collapsing onto Felix and pushing their foreheads together. 

If Felix stopped to think about it he’d start hyperventilating, so he hit Sylvain in the side. “Get off me. You’re heavy.”

Sylvain rolled to the side and tucked himself back into his pants, giving Felix an easy grin. Before he could open his mouth, Felix said, “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Say whatever dumbass thing you’re about to say.”

Sylvain laughed. “Classic,” he said, shaking his head. He gave Felix a horribly fond look and wiped a few strands of hair out of his face. “Come upstairs with me.”

Felix rolled his eyes and kissed him anyway. 

* * *

For three days, Felix avoids Sylvain. On the fourth, Ingrid drops down next to him in the dining hall and eats in silence for seven minutes before she finally says what she came to say. 

“You know —”

“Here it comes,” he mutters. Ingrid elbows him. 

“I’ve cleaned up a lot of Sylvain’s messes,” she says, aiming for casual and missing. 

“This isn’t a mess.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s nothing. It was never anything. It’s nothing.”

“Mm, very convincing. Look, Felix, have you ever stopped to consider that maybe what you want and what he wants isn’t so incompatible after all?”

Felix stabs at his carrots. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, for Saints sakes — people don’t just start having sex with their best friends for no reason, Felix. Not unless there’s something there to… to ignite.”

“Mind your own business, Ingrid.”

Ingrid sighs and stands up. “I just don’t see what the point of both of you being miserable is.”

Felix grabs her by the elbow. “Why would Sylvain be miserable?”

Ingrid groans loudly, sitting back down. “You have got to be kidding me. Felix.” She looks into his eyes and seems unhappy at what she finds there. “ _ Goddess.  _ He loves you just as much as you love him, you utter fool.” She steals one of his potatoes. “Unbelievable.”

Felix stares at her, eyes narrowed. “How do you know?”

“You two are sleeping together! What other evidence do you need?”

Felix deflates; he hadn’t even realized he had been feeling a bit of hope, and he’s annoyed when he realizes that’s what the feeling in his chest is. “You can’t really be stupid enough to be suggesting that Sylvain loves everyone he fucks. You should know better.”

Ingrid rubs her temples. “Do you know how many broken hearts I’ve had to clean up, that he leaves behind him? I’ve never had to fix him up. He had already moved on to the next girl. But you should see him right now. He’s  _ moping. _ ”

“Don’t be overdramatic.”

“You haven’t seen him,” Ingrid says, surprisingly seriously. “I’m serious, Felix. This is stupid. You both feel the same, and you’re both miserable like this. So  _ do  _ something about it.” She stands up again, and her voice goes quiet. “I’ve already lost one friend,” she says, and Felix thinks about Dimitri and the ghosts he carries around on his shoulders. “You are both too valuable to me, so I will not stand here and watch you make fools of yourselves.” She stomps off, then, leaving Felix to sit there and stare at his food, feeling rather confused. 

Ingrid must have misread the situation, because there was no way that Sylvain — flirty Sylvain, who had a new girl, sometimes two, a week, who left a trail of broken hearts behind him, his best friend — if he felt some kind of way about Felix, why wouldn’t he have told him? It wasn’t like they didn’t know how much they meant to each other; they had promised each other that they would never leave, that they’d die on the same day, so they never had to live in a world where the other was gone. Sylvain must know, must know how Felix feels. Why else would he have started this?

Except he hadn’t started this, had he. Felix had crossed that line. Felix had kissed him. Felix had come to his room, every night, and Sylvain asked him to stay  _ every night  _ and Felix never did. He always pulled away. Always left. Always ignored the way Sylvain was reaching out, too busy protecting his heart that he hadn’t even realized Sylvain was giving his away freely. 

“Fuck,” he says, with feeling. 

* * *

He spends the day obsessively training, trying to figure out what the fuck to do, and by the time night falls he still doesn’t have a clear answer. So he knocks on Sylvain’s door that night with no plan in his head, and with his heart in his throat. This was the edge, and Felix was going to fling himself off. He’d either fall or fly, but either way there was no turning back. They couldn’t return to how they used to be; they had to create something new. 

Sylvain opens the door. He looks surprised to see Felix, and not entirely happy. Felix feels his heart stutter. 

“Felix,” he says, voice wary. “I, uh. Didn’t think you’d come by again.” He stretches his arm behind his head and gives a shaky smile. Felix closes the door behind him and leans against it, trying to figure out what to say. 

While he’s trying to figure it out, Sylvain says, “I don’t think you’re one of my girls.”

Felix swallows. “I know —”

“And I’m not just… I wasn’t trying to make this more than it is, I’m sorry if I pushed. I just thought —”

“I’m in love with you,” Felix says. Simple. Easy. The truth at the heart of his soul. 

He is in the air; this is it. Fall or fly. Sink or soar. 

“What?” He can’t read Sylvain’s expression. Sylvain is such a master at keeping his emotions hidden. Felix has seen it a hundred times before, seen the way his eyes sparkle and hide all the anger and resentment and insecurity he holds inside himself. 

He has loved him so long, and this has been a losing battle from the start. As if he could ever keep this at arms length. 

“I love you,” he says again. His cheeks are burning with the honesty, the vulnerability, but Sylvain has always been surrounded by insincere people, and Felix will die before he becomes one of them. “I thought it was just — sex, or whatever. I was too… afraid. To stay.”

A slow smile spreads across Sylvain’s face; it lights up the entire goddamn room. “Really?”

“I’m not saying it again,” he mutters. Sylvain laughs and steps forward, cupping Felix’s face. 

“I didn’t know.”

“Well, you’re an idiot,” Felix says, unable to meet Sylvain’s eyes. Sylvain laughs again, leaning forward and kissing Felix, pushing him against the door. Felix winds his arms around Sylvain’s neck and raises up on his toes to get closer. 

“I love you,” Sylvain says. 

“Shut up,” Felix says. 

* * *

Felix wakes up the next morning to Sylvain raining kisses on his face. He groans and throws an arm over his eyes. 

“Good morning,” Sylvain says. Felix tries to bite back his smile and fails. Sylvain leans down and kisses him on the mouth. Felix covers his face with his hands. 

“Shut up.”

Sylvain laughs. It’s loud and infectious and  _ happy,  _ and Felix loves him so fucking much. He’s on fire with it, but all he feels is warm. 

“You’re cute in the morning.”

“You have morning breath.”

Sylvain blows air in his face. Felix shoves him down and rolls on top of him; his hair, not yet tied up, forms a curtain around them. 

“You love me,” Sylvain says with a grin. Felix rolls his eyes and pretends to be annoyed. 

“Shut up,” he says, one last time, before leaning down to kiss him. 

* * *

Ingrid sits down beside him at dinner. 

“Shut up.”

“I told you so.”

“ _ Shut up.” _

Sylvain sits down on his other side and links their ankles together. Felix rolls his eyes and leans against him anyway, and when Ingrid steals some of his food he lets her.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter @felixfraldaddy  
tumblr @aravenlikeawritingdesk


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